Within the world of distance running, there is an axiom that you never, ever forget your first marathon. And if you are so fortunate as to qualify for the Boston Marathon along the way, that statement holds true ten-fold.
Roughly a month ago, six locals tackled the fabled 26 mile Massachusetts downhill course, with at least some of this half-dozen taking in all that was the 130th edition of the Patriots’ Day tradition for the very first time.
While Dorian Cornett (age 31) posted the fastest time among the Sudbury Six (2:35.13), the reality for these folks is that the race within the race is one they have with themselves, looking to simply perform to the best of their ability, regardless of where they would ultimately slot in the field of some 30,000 participants.
Dealing with bothersome IT (iliotibial) band in the weeks leading up to the race, former Sudbury Lady Wolves’ forward and member of the Laurentian Voyageurs' women’s hockey team from 2013 to 2017 Elissa Bertuzzi was more than happy with a time of 3:05 that was just a shade off the 3:03 that she ran at the Toronto Marathon in May of 2025.
“Considering that I was not 100% going in and given how I was feeling halfway through, I was very happy,” said the 31 year old firefighter who ran track and cross-country through elementary school and into grade nine at Lively District Secondary School before shelving a sport in which she had enjoyed some success in favour of a slew of other options in high-school.
Many a non-runner has heard of “Heartbreak Hill”, a 600-metre steep incline at roughly the 20 mile mark of the Boston Marathon. That said, Sudbury runners swear by the hills forged out of the meteor strike that formed the nickel basin. It’s not the Boston up-hills, apparently, that offer the greatest challenge.
“Heartbreak Hill, for me, wasn’t that bad,” said Bertuzzi. “Maybe I’m just used to running in Sudbury – but the beginning (of the race) is rolling downhills and the downhills were super steep and long and my quads were done before I reached the halfway point of the race.”
“That I did not expect.”
Bertuzzi first returned to running following her graduation from L.U. at a time she was doing volunteer firefighting. “I just decided to go outside for a run,” she recalled. “There’s no race; there’s no pressure; there’s just me going as slow or as fast as I want. The more I would do it, the more I felt I could do longer distances.”
On the urging of her uncle (Leo Kari), Bertuzzi ventured into the half-marathon as part of the Sudbury Rocks Marathon festivities a few years before Covid. “I was just going out to run 10km pretty regularly so it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to do a half-marathon,” she said.
By the time she had completed the half in her hometown on four separate occasions, there was a yearning to do more – though preferably somewhere out of town. “Toronto (Marathon) is more of a downhill and flat course” – just the setting, perhaps, to take a shot at hitting the Boston standard for her age group of 3:25 or so.
“I have always said I wasn’t planning on qualifying for Boston – but deep down, I was secretly hoping to qualify – even if I didn’t express that to everybody,” said Bertuzzi.
Dr Julianne Falconi had most certainly entertained the same thought over her years of mixing in the priority that was running with countless academic undertakings. The 40 year-old Sudbury native who currently calls Toronto home (but is a frequent visitor to the north) was completing her sixth marathon last month.
That said, none of the previous five could quite compare.
“Boston is in a league of its own,” said Falconi, who also walked away quite happy with her time of 3:44 in a race that she would run a mere eight months or so following the birth of her first child, Vittulio. “It’s been sort of a life goal to run Boston so I knew a great deal about the course.”
For as much as running has been part of the mix since her days attending Guelph University some two decades ago, it was dance that occupied her time in her teenage years and before. “The discipline of dance training really helped,” she said.
“In theory, it should also help with flexibility and stretching” – though her laugh might suggest that was not necessarily the case. A former teacher, Falconi has travelled a very interesting life journey, even if one discounts all of her adventures in races and training and such.
The daughter of a family physician, she decided relatively late to follow those footsteps, this tangent leading her to study at St Matthew’s University in Grand Cayman, fortunate enough to secure a residency in the aftermath with the University of Toronto family medicine department, thus allowing her to return, as she wished, to practice in Canada.
Through it all, running was an integral part of her daily routine.
“I am a huge proponent of staying active and making things a priority if its important to you,” said Falconi. “Especially through medical school, deep in the trenches, I needed my priorities. Running allowed me to think more clearly, sleep better, focus better. It just helped me be an overall better person.”
One who has grown to garner an appreciation for those episodes in life that some might take for granted.
Like Bertuzzi, Falconi dealt with the quad pain of early downhills giving way to eventual climbs.
She was equally thrilled with the start to finish support that runners in Boston receive. But the moment that really touched her was a far more personal one, borne of a reality that few within her training group could necessarily relate to.
“Boston has amazing accommodations for lactating women,” Falconi noted. “There was a lactation tent at the start of the race. There were many women in this tent, all ranges of post-partum, from three months to a year – and we were all in there together.”
“It was the most amazing experience to have that sort of bonding.”
Just one more reason to never, ever forget her first Boston.
At the other end of the Boston spectrum sits Norm Lonergan, the local sexagenarian who ran the race for the 10th time last month, clocking in at 4:09.44. Rounding out the Sudbury field who completed the 2026 Boston Marathon were Cassidy Throssel (3:29.30) and Heleen de Necker (3:33.53).
(*all of the above is based on info obtained either through Sudbury Rocks Running Club website or word of mouth – if I have missed anyone, please email me at info@sudburysports.com)
Not surprisingly, we did in fact miss a local connection, even if it ties into a current resident of Toronto. Still, Cailtyn Kusnierczyk is hardly an unknown in local sporting circles, having skied with the Adanac Ski Club and part of a well-known family in hockey, golf and such.
Kusnierczyk completed the Boston Marathon in 3:24:11, finishing in the upper tier of all women who partook in the race.
